There is a substantial need for finger touch actuated switches that are rugged and explosion proof, operate in the presence of liquids, have low power consumption, withstand aggressive sterilization procedures and are inexpensive. Known switches that attempt to meet these needs but fail include the following. A Qprox switch made by Quantum Research Group senses the presence of touch through a charge transfer effect. This switch is sensitive to conductive fluids and/or an ionizing atmosphere and can be made inoperable thereby. Further, the enclosure through which touch is sensed cannot be made of an electrically conducting material, so that metals and the like cannot be used. Piezoelectric switches such as supplied by Schurter or Wilson-Hurd, operate by transferring finger pressure via a metal overlay to a piezoelectric element which generates a voltage when compressed. This type of switch is expensive compared to a standard membrane switch and shares the disadvantages of membrane switches in that holes in the housing or enclosure are required to accommodate the switch. Further, the metal overlay is necessarily thin, so that the piezoelectric element is relatively unprotected against blows to the overlay. Another type of switch shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,149,986 is based on the absorption of sound in a glass, ball-shaped button when the button is touched. In operation, a transducer sends sound waves into the glass balls and then receives back the echoes in a sonar type fashion. A circuit analyzes the echoes to determine whether the echoes have been reduced indicating a touch. This type of switch is relatively expensive and again requires openings in the housing or enclosure in which the switch is to be mounted.
An acoustic wave switch such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,673,041 includes an ultrasonic piezoelectric transducer mounted on a surface of a substrate opposite a touch surface of the substrate. The transducer generates an ultrasonic wave that propagates in a direction across the thickness of the substrate to the touch surface and reflects off of the touch surface back to the transducer. The ultrasonic wave appears to be a compressional wave. A touch on the touch surface changes the acoustic reflectivity of the surface and changes the impedance of the transducer. The acoustic energy in this switch is not confined and spreads out into the plane of the substrate. As such, the ratio of the stored energy to lost or dissipated energy over a complete cycle, referred to as the Q of the switch, is inherently low and an extremely complex touch detection circuit is required to discriminate between a touch and the absence of a touch. Moreover, the use of compressional waves in this switch is undesirable due to their sensitivity to liquids and other contaminants which can render the switch inoperable.
Also known are acoustic wave touch panels that employ reflective gratings or arrays to reflect portions of an acoustic wave across a touch surface along parallel paths of differing lengths. These devices use a transparent substrate that can overlay a display to provide a touch screen or the like. Examples of such touch sensors are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,645,870 and 4,700,176 which utilize surface acoustic waves. These systems are undesirable, however, because surface acoustic waves are sensitive to liquids, sealing compounds and other contaminants that can render the panel inoperable and difficult to seal effectively. Another acoustic wave touch panel using reflective arrays is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,177,327. This touch panel uses shear waves and in particular the zeroth order horizontally polarized shear wave. Although this touch position sensor is insensitive to liquids and contaminants, touch position sensors that use reflective gratings or arrays and the associated touch detection circuitry are, in general, too expensive to use for an individual switch or for a small number of switches on a panel. Moreover, because the piezoelectric transducer in this latter system is mounted on a side of the panel to generate a shear wave that propagates in the plane of the substrate, an opening in the enclosure or housing is required to accommodate the panel. U.S. Pat. No. 5,573,077 also uses zeroth order horizontally polarized shear waves, but instead of reflective gratings, discrete piezoelectric transducers are used to propagate the shear waves along parallel paths extending across the substrate.
Although an Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducer (EMAT) is known for generating acoustic waves, this type of transducer has not been used in known acoustic wave switches or touch panels. That is because EMATs are very inefficient converters of electrical energy to acoustic wave energy. In known systems, tens of amps are needed to drive the coils of the EMAT wherein the current is pulsed to avoid overheating. The output signal picked up remains so weak in known systems that it must be amplified by a factor of ten thousand or so to be detected. As such, special amplifiers and electromagnetic shielding techniques are required as well as complicated signal processing circuits. Moreover, separate transmit and receive transducers are typically required. Another factor that limits the use of EMATs is that they require an electrically conducting substrate in which to induce the acoustic wave. Because of the associated problems, EMATs are typically used only in applications such as non-destructive testing for detecting flaws in large metal objects such as jet turbine compressor blades, rocket motor parts, etc. The use of EMATs in non-destructive testing takes advantage of the fact that an EMAT does not have to be physically attached to the object being tested.